• Ben Hutchings's avatar
    sfc: Use TX push whenever adding descriptors to an empty queue · cd38557d
    Ben Hutchings authored
    Whenever we add DMA descriptors to a TX ring and update the ring
    pointer, the TX DMA engine must first read the new DMA descriptors and
    then start reading packet data.  However, all released Solarflare 10G
    controllers have a 'TX push' feature that allows us to reduce latency
    by writing the first new DMA descriptor along with the pointer update.
    This is only useful when the queue is empty.  The hardware should
    ignore the pushed descriptor if the queue is not empty, but this check
    is buggy, so we must do it in software.
    
    In order to tell whether a TX queue is empty, we need to compare the
    previous transmission count (write_count) and completion count
    (read_count).  However, if we do that every time we update the ring
    pointer then read_count may ping-pong between the caches of two CPUs
    running the transmission and completion paths for the queue.
    Therefore, we split the check for an empty queue between the
    completion path and the transmission path:
    
    - Add an empty_read_count field representing a point at which the
      completion path saw the TX queue as empty.
    - Add an old_write_count field for use on the completion path.
    - On the completion path, whenever read_count reaches or passes
      old_write_count the TX queue may be empty.  We then read
      write_count, set empty_read_count if read_count == write_count,
      and update old_write_count.
    - On the transmission path, we read empty_read_count.  If it's set, we
      compare it with the value of write_count before the current set of
      descriptors was added.  If they match, the queue really is empty and
      we can use TX push.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarBen Hutchings <bhutchings@solarflare.com>
    cd38557d
tx.c 32.7 KB